


Flip On A Switch, Everything's Fine

by queenallyababwa



Series: Impressions of Four Bad Parents [1]
Category: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - All Media Types
Genre: ((Of the prescription kind)), 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Backstory, Divorce, Eloping, F/M, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Jewish Character, Minor Original Character(s), Musical Based, Musical References, Original Character(s), Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net, Postpartum Depression
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2017-04-18
Packaged: 2018-05-28 04:31:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6315109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenallyababwa/pseuds/queenallyababwa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I wrote this last summer and finally decided to post here I guess. The parents of the four kids have intrigued me a while and this really is an exploration of their characters from their childhood to the day of their press conference for their children's Golden Ticket.</p>
    </blockquote>





	1. Flip On A Switch

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this last summer and finally decided to post here I guess. The parents of the four kids have intrigued me a while and this really is an exploration of their characters from their childhood to the day of their press conference for their children's Golden Ticket.

Denver, Colorado, 1993

Eleventh period, third to last day of school. Nobody felt like doing much of anything, so school seemed like a long, continuous study hall that had no actual studying. All around her, Doris' classmates were filling the chalk board with "I heart Matt/Zack/Kevin", leading fleets of paper airplanes, acting like this was the gymnasium and not Mrs. Marsh's Algebra classroom. (Mrs. Marsh, it should be noted, was engrossed in Misery by Stephen King, not noticing that somebody thought it would be funny to draw genitals by Stephanie's "I heart Rick.")

 

And Doris? She was reading, too. Only instead of a thriller novel, she was skimming through her new National Geographic, reading an article on Bora Bora.

 

She looked down at the beautiful photograph of a series of islands surrounded by the bluest water she'd had ever seen. She flipped the page and a photograph of a turtle surrounded by colorful fish. Sitting in her assigned seat by the window, she was transported from a bleak, grey classroom to a bright, colorful island.

 

She remembered being really small and Daddy showing her pictures from his honeymoon in Honolulu with Mom. She could vaguely remember Daddy looking at the pictures of a younger version of himself and Mom, laughing, smiling on a boat. Mom showed her the shells she collected and the dried up lei she received when they arrived to the resort. They promised they'd take her there one day.

 

Someone turned on their Walkman and obnoxious pop music blared. Eleventh period was inching closer to a full-blown party. Someone asked Mrs. Marsh (loudly over the music) if they could bring in cupcakes and a movie tomorrow, since it was their final day together in Algebra IB and all.

 

Doris flipped the page to the next article, an article about some rocks in New Mexico. Not nearly as exciting as Bora Bora, but it was a much more likely of a vacation spot than some tropical island, anyway. Mom had been talking about taking the family somewhere this summer, after Doris and Danny came home from summer camp.

 

Of course, her mother had been telling Doris that they'd do something together that summer after the eight weeks of summer camp since Doris was Danny's age. But after those eight weeks, it was already August and her mother had work and they got busy and the most she managed was taking her to the nice mall for a fancy lunch and back-to-school shopping.

 

This year could be different?

 

Doris started reading, day-dreaming about a trip to New Mexico. It'd be hot as heck. But she was sure it wouldn't matter as long as -

 

"Dorie? Dorie. Hey, Dorie."

 

Doris looked up from her magazine to see Tommy Cartman sitting on the heater next to her.

 

Tommy Cartman. He was one of the most popular boys in the eighth grade. And he was talking to her.

 

And it was no lie to admit that Doris has the slightest crush on Tommy. But not like she'd publicly admit that. Their courtship during the last semester had mainly consisted of him asking her a lot for a pencil/piece of paper/the answers to numbers seventeen to twenty three on the homework last night. And every time he asked for one of those things, she'd be cast under his sandy blonde, green-eyed spell.

 

Just like she was now.

 

"Can I ask you something?"

 

She adjusted her glasses back onto the bridge of her nose. She wanted to see Tommy's face clearly. She smiled as cool as possible, as smooth as possible, trying to hide her braces. "Yeah, Tommy?" she asked.

 

"Can you give this to Debbie later?" Tommy handed Doris a folded piece of notebook paper with the edge still attached. "Since you have a locker next to her?"

 

"Uh . . .sure?"

 

Doris took the note and tucked it in her National Geographic for temporary safe-keeping.

 

"Thanks."

 

Tommy then joined his friends Kylie and Matt to laugh at something Matt had tucked in a semi-suspicious but supposedly inconspicuous Denver Bronco's folder. But they didn't talk/laugh/oogle for very long before the bell rang and the mass of twenty nine fifteen-year-olds zoomed out of the classroom and out of the school.

 

Doris collected her National Geographic and her messenger bag and was the last to file out of the classroom. She looked back to Mrs. Marsh, who had stuck a piece of paper into Misery and bent back in the roll-y chair at her desk, stretching after a long day of doing nothing. She mumbled something of a goodbye but Doris had already ducked into the hallway.

 

The edge of Tommy's note stuck out of the pages from the New Mexico article.

 

Curiosity might have killed the cat, but there was no harm in a little peeking, right? Doris looked around quickly, like one does before crossing a street, before opening up the creases of the notebook paper.

 

It wasn't like a do u like me? check yes or no note (she had intercepted a few of those in the past eight years but had never really received any). It was just an invitation to a pool party at Tommy's house on the last day of school.

 

Damn.

 

Trying not to let the snubbing bother her, Doris went to her locker, zigzagging her way through the seemingly dozens of people who were all trying to cram into the very, very, very small area of the locker docks. She scooted past the passionate preteen couple kissing against her own locker (she had thankfully learned to grab everything before the end of the day to avoid, well, dealing with that) and stuffed the re-folded note into the top of Debbie's locker before she walked out.

 

Twenty minutes later found Doris at her favorite spot in town - the UFO store. "UFO" actually stood for "Used Furniture Outlet" and not "Unidentified Flying Object."

 

The entire place was like someone's enormous attic that had orange price stickers stamped on everything in loopy, cursive scrawl. It reeked of mothballs and cigar smoke, it was poorly-light, it was only organized by a vaguely by related things (old, grimy 1950s Fiesta dishes were neighboring Star Wars tumblers from ten years ago and the couches and armchairs and coffee tables made the back half of the store look like one colossal, dust-covered living room.) And to add it, the man who presided over this kingdom of worn-out, unwanted junk, Mickey, was a grumpy old man who often spoke out of the corner of his mouth because there was usually something in his mouth that he was smoking, be it a cigar, cigarette, or a pipe.

Mickey's awful nicotine addiction was one of the reasons Doris' mother didn't like her coming to the UFO store.

"Do you want lung cancer, Doris Keyes-Stein?" He mother asked her whenever Doris came home smelling like tobacco after spending an afternoon at the store. "You're begging for it hanging around that place." What followed after those opening sentences varied on her mother's mood. Somedays she told her to go outside to play with Danny, hopeful that the fresh air would breeze out the smell. Others she told Doris to march her ass to the shower and to wash her hair out at least three times before she could get out.

 

Sometimes her mother locked the door.

 

But that all was the price to pay for at least a few hours hanging out the store. Over the past couple of months since Doris started visiting the store several times a week, Mickey had warmed up to her. She was one of his few customers on weekdays - never mind frequent - so he usually chatted with her for a while before he left her alone to explore or read her magazine's in one of the countless plaid sofas in the back. He was also helping her build her collection.

 

When Doris walked in that afternoon, Mickey was at his usual spot at the antique cash-register, which sat upon a glass case filled with old, vintage broaches, earrings, and necklaces. These sort of items weren't good enough for a legitimate pawn shop because they, like all of the things in the UFO store, had a sort of dark, grubby look to them no matter how much Mickey had tried to spiff up and polish them.

 

Mickey, of course, had a big, fat cigar hanging out from his wide lower lip, trickling ashes down onto the glass counter. He was reading the Denver Post.

 

As soon as the bell above the heavy door tinkled, he muttered through his cigar, "Four thirty-already?"

 

"Yeah," Doris laughed as she crossed the threshold and walked up to the counter and pulled out the wooden stool next to Mickey.

 

"Outta school yet?"He asked, putting the paper down the counter, but not taking the cigar out of his mouth.

 

"Not yet," she said. "We still have two more days. But it's not like it's really school anymore, you know? "

 

"I wouldn't know," Mickey replied, flicking out the ashes of his cigar into the chipped Howard Johnson's ashtray he had sitting next to the Star Trek coffee mug he filled with pens and pencils.

 

Even if Mickey had started tolerating a fifteen-year-old invading his professional domain of used furniture, he really didn't like a fifteen-year-old prying into his personal life. From what Doris could remember of her grandfathers (both were dead and buried) , didn't old men like to recount their glory days?

 

But Mickey kept his past locked up behind a big, guarded fence.

 

Ah, well.

 

That didn't mean that there were sometimes when Doris wasn't able to peek through the cracks in the fence. What she had gathered was that Mickey had served in the military at some point - it was probably World War II and had a family during the Baby Boom following his service. He had been living outside Denver since his time in the Army (or the Navy or whatever.) He only briefly mentioned his wife (who might have been dead) and his three kids ( who might have been estranged).

 

But that was it.

 

But, in exchange for this privacy, he allowed Doris to rant and ramble about her life. He seemed to have a genuine interest in it. A patient ear. A nodding head. Sometimes advice. He never really interrupted her long, seemingly endless stream of words. The only time he would really say anything would be when there would be a question needed to guide the conversation along, like a paddle to a canoe down a river.

 

It was like therapy.

 

Doris eventually settled on talking about her summer plans and how this was going to be Danny's first summer at Camp Crockett ("King of the Wild Frontier?" Doris stared. "Never mind.") and how she was worried about him because this was going to be the first summer away from his family and they were going to all the way to South Carolina and for eight whole weeks and what if he didn't like it?

 

"I mean, I didn't like my first summer at Pine Haven for the first couple of weeks but I mean, given what was happening to ME at that time, I felt so conflicted and . . . I won't be there to help Danny settle in. He's like three or four miles away and the only time we'll see each other is Fourth of July and camp dances and competitions. But that's all."

 

Mickey extinguished the nub of his cigar in the ashtray. "And what does Danny think, huh?"

 

"Danny's excited. More excited than I was at his age, anyway. But I think he would be a little more worried."

 

"Why?"

 

"It's a big change for him," Doris said, sighing and putting her head down on the glass cabinet. "It just seems weird that he's looking forward to going away. He cried when he had to go to preschool for like the first week. He just hates being separated from everything.

 

"But doesn't it make sense though? Wanting to escape?"

 

"Sure it does. I guess. But everything going on with mom and Richard."

 

"How is Richard, anyway?"

 

Doris started rubbing her index finger into the glass. "Okay, I guess. Still works a ton. We hardly see him anymore since he started working with the Tucson office as well as the Denver one. He doesn't want to move to Arizona, but I feel like it might go that way in a couple of months. . . " He voice trailed off. "Can I have a Coke? I think I might look around a while."

 

"Whatever you want," Mickey said as he reached over into the miniature refrigerator he kept next to the old-timey cash register. He pulled out an old time-y Coca Cola bottle and un-capped it for her with his magnet beer bottle opener from Celebration, Florida.

 

(He normally charged customers fifty cents for each bottle but he made the exception for Doris.)

 

And so Doris left Mickey to his Denver Post to head back through the caverns of old baskets, telephones, pottery, cassette tapes, records, candleholders, vanity sets, un-opened Barbie dolls, books, dollhouses, Girl Scout sashes (?), long-ago crocheted afghans, lamps missing bulbs . . .

 

She lost herself in the shelves upon shelves of junk, sipping her Coke every so often as she pulled out a few things here and there to examine them, look at their price, keep them nearby if she decided she could spare the cash . When she had finished her rounds to find anything new, she went to her favorite item that hadn't been sold yet - a yellow and blue armchair towards the back that had a wobbly, coffee-stained oak side table next to it. There she pulled out her book and read.

 

Mickey's UFO store and the library were the only two places where Doris could lose herself in a book. If she was at home, somebody would have the TV blaring or loud music playing or Danny would come and ask her to play with him or her mother would ask her to help get dinner started/vacuum the house/clean out the basement/a million other household chores.

 

But hardly anyone came into the UFO store, anyway. And if they did come to the back of the store, they'd ignore the fifteen-year-old girl sitting there, reading Catcher in the Rye. And if Mickey turned on the radio, it could never fill out the entire store (he had never bought sound equipment to be able to play anything loudly throughout the entire store). Instead, the oldies that Mickey listened to lightly floated through the store, soft, breeze-like.

 

Time seemed to be non-existent in this world. It was just Doris, and the book, and the chair, and Frank Sinatra records. She always couldn't believe it when Mickey would call out to her from behind his spot behind the counter.

 

"Five fifty-five, Doris," he said. "Closin' time."

 

Doris sighed and stuffed her crocheted bookmark back into her spot and went back to the front of the store with the items that she had collected - a few fashion magazines from the fifties, a pink telephone that was a little sticky but nothing some Windex would never fix. The grand total was three-dollars and twenty-five cents.

 

"This is the fifth day in a row that ya bought magazines," Mickey noted as he put each one in the plastic Have a Nice Day shopping bag. "What are you plannin' to do, build a wall with 'em?"

 

"Not exactly," Doris laughed as she took the bag from Mickey.

 

"See ya tomorrow?"

 

"See you tomorrow."

 

Doris had a quick stop to the fabric store before she was home. There she picked up some cream-colored yarn and a yard of fabric with Superman printed on it.

 

As she walked up her driveway, she looked down at her watch.

 

6:30.

 

At first, when Doris came home this late, her mother would yell. Ask her where the hell she had been? She could have been kidnapped. She could have been molested. Even in the suburbs, those things happen. Why didn't you call? And why the hell weren't you here to watch, Danny, hmmm?

 

But now, Mom was starting to back off when it came to Doris being out.

 

When Doris arrived home, she would be just home in time to go down and set the table for another tense, too-quiet dinner.

 

And lately, her mother had been serving up a lot more cold-stares and vodka with dinner than anything.

 

But today when she arrived home, she didn't find anyone inside. Nothing was cooking on the stove. Nobody was watching the Nightly News. The only thing that greeted Doris when she came in the door was the cat who stared at her with wide yellow eyes from the archway leading into the living room.

 

"Hello?" She called out, just to check, as she flicked on the light in the foyer. The cat scampered away to go hide under his usual spot of his nest of blankets under the couch.

 

Even Macavity liked to hide.

 

Doris walked into the kitchen to find a note written in her mother's sloppy handwriting:

 

Took Danny to his baseball practice.

 

Will be home at 8:00-ish.

 

Well, if they were going to be coming home that late, that meant her mother wasn't going to have the energy to even remotely throw together dinner. Meaning Doris had to fend for herself and find something to eat.

 

Doris took the note and threw it away before she open the fridge to pull out a TV dinner consisting of meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and some sort of sad little brownie thing. It wasn't like Doris couldn't cook, but she realized that now she had another full hour and a half before she had to deal with her mother or anyone.

 

Peace and quiet.

 

She popped her dinner into the microwave before taking it to her bedroom upstairs with the bags from the UFO store and the fabric place.

 

Her room was slowly becoming her haven, where she figured she could hide in case of Nuclear explosion. Over the months with Mickey, she had acquired numerous things for the inevitable End of the World. Dozens of VHS tapes, records, a hot plate, a cooler, books. And slowly, slowly she was trying to redecorate her room for functionality for the upcoming storm and as a place of meditation. With the help of the UFO stores she was building a sanctuary that had started one weekend when Richard was being spiteful and wanted to get back a Mom for whatever reason so he allowed Doris to paint her room Pepto Bismol pink and get rid of all of her old furniture for vintage stuff.

 

(That was how she met Mickey.)

 

She placed the phone on her desk, deciding she'd plug it into the wall to see if it worked later. She figured if it didn't, it was actually for the better. With the storm approaching, she'd probably wouldn't want to have a phone ringing when her mother needed to talk to someone morning/noon/and night. The fabric and the magazines went by her smaller crafts desk.

 

After she ate her TV dinner she decided to start right away on the project she had been planning for a long time - sewing Danny a Superman pillow before they left for camp. She turned on a Doris Day record (she was glad to have found someone so iconic who shared the same name as for years Doris Keyes-Stein despised her first name.) And together with the soft, jazzy songs of the record and the rhyme of cutting and sewing the pillow together, she was lulled into a temporary paradise. She sang along to some of her favorite songs as she crafted, forgetting about the rest of the world until two cars pulled up into the driveway.

 

She tried to ignore them as she took the pillow under the sewing machine and stitched the edges together, singing along with the other Doris to "Blue Skies."

 

"Blue skies  
Smiling at me  
Nothing but blue skies  
Do I see . . . "

 

Car doors slammed outside. Loudly. Thunderously. Storm clouds pressed against her window.

 

She closed her eyes and sighed. They couldn't wait until they got inside for this? What would the neighbors think?

 

"Bluebirds  
Singing a song  
Nothing but bluebirds  
All day long . . ."

 

She turned the record a little louder and tried to block out all sounds of what was happening outside on the driveway. She sewed faster, hoping the fast hum of the machine would drown out the noise even more.

 

But it couldn't block out the sound of a boy wanting to claim sanctuary. Danny stood in the doorway still in his dirty baseball uniform, dust on his knees, tears down his cheeks.

 

Doris stopped her sewing. "Dad and mom fighting again?"

 

Danny sniffed.

 

Doris opened her arms and Danny cried into her shoulder. She kissed him on the top of his baseball capped head. "Go get washed up and into your PJs and I'll make us some popcorn, 'kay?"

 

Danny rubbed his eyes as his half-sister lead him into her bathroom and started running the shower for him, testing the water before he went in. She rummaged through his cabinet and pulled out a pair of Danny's spare Superman pajamas she always kept under her towels.

 

It was all part of divorce-proofing her room to make it a shelter for two children to hide and wait for the twister of lawyers, alimony settlements, deciding who gets what/whom to pass through.

 

She went back into her room and turned off the blaring Doris Day record and in the silence between when she turned off the record and turned on her television to any channel loud enough, she could hear the usual fighting words.

 

Lazy. Never there. Alcoholic. Workaholic. Bitch. So mean.

 

One divorce had already shattered what she had known as her family. Now it seemed like any day now another would wreck havoc on what had been established seven years ago as her new normal. Time again to pick herself up and figure out what happens now.

 

She had lived this whole experience years ago and knew how to man the hatches. But Danny, this was so new, so scary. And when their parents started fighting, he was like a body drifting along high cresting waves, aimless, alone, terrified. Doris just pulled him into her dingy and they held each other close together.

 

While Danny was in the shower, she prepared some Jiffy Pop on her hot plate and pulled out two Coca Colas from her cooler. When Macavity scratched at the door, she let him and he snuggled up against one of her old teddy bears in the corner of the room.

 

Danny appeared dressed in his Superman pajamas that were a little short in the legs. He crawled into the folds of her big floral comforter. Doris joined him.

 

"Lucy okay for you?" Doris asked Danny as she handed him a blue Fiesta bowl full of popcorn and a can of Coke.

 

"Sure," Danny said, accepting both and putting them on the side table next two him. His face was red from the shower and from crying. "I wanna watch the chocolate factory one."

 

"The one where Lucy and Ethel switch with Ricky and Fred for the day?"

 

"Yeah. It's my favorite."

 

"Mine, too."

 

And Doris turned on the TV's VCR and in popped the I Love Lucy tape. Black and white hearts filled the screen and the theme song filled the room. She turned up the volume, drowning out the world.

 

"Lucy kisses like no one can  
She's my missus and I'm her man  
And life is heaven you see . . ."

 

In Lucy's and Ricky's world, as with everyone on TV's, everything was fine.


	2. My Dreams Are Getting Better All the Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I went to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on Broadway last Friday (living the dream!) I am gong to keep this spoiler-free for ya'll, and I am not going to change the story for any and all changes made in the 2017 transfer. This remains a solely West-End related fic series (even thought I really did love the new show).
> 
> Also I started this in December so . . . finally I finish something haha
> 
> I'd love to hear what you think~

“Well, What Do You Know?  
He Smiled at Me in My Dreams Last Night  
My Dreams are Getting Better All the Time”

Boulder, Colorado, 1997

Doris peered into the little mirror on her desk and applied a second coat of mascara. Clicking her tongue, she checked for orderliness in her hairstyle - a long ponytail with a perfectly quaffed victory roll bang - before uncapping a pleasantly pink lipstick.

It was Friday morning and both Doris and her roommate didn’t have classes on Friday by some amazing happening of the cosmos. So they could enjoy the day and lounge in bed for however long they pleased. Doris would be doing just that, if she didn’t have somewhere to go today.

Her roommate, Jody, had a paper for South Asian Politics due in three days and had been out until very late last night, so she was enjoying a day in bed. She was currently staring off into space at the poster of Frida Kahlo’s The Broken Column that she had hung up on her side of the wall. 

(Doris didn’t like the poster at first. It made her uncomfortable. But Jody went on about the significance of pain and suffering of women and of a disabled woman in a patriarchal society and how Frida rose above it to become one of the most celebrated Mexican painters of all time and Doris let it go. She just tried to not look at it that much. )

Doris had finished making a perfect Cupid’s bow before Jody asked the question that was begging to be asked, “You got a date?”

“No,” Doris snickered lightly to herself. “Well, I technically have a date with the Center for Career.”

Jody hummed. “Are you picking your major?”

“Maybe,” Doris said, beginning to fill her bottom lip with the pearly pink. 

“Fucking finally.”

Doris laughed. She was nearing the end of her Sophomore year fast and she still hadn’t declared a major yet. She had taken all of the gen ed she needed and had flittered around with her thoughts of what to do for the past two years. She needed to get serious about what the hell she was doing with her life.

“So what are you thinking?” Jody pried, sitting up in bed and pulling her grass green comforter closer to herself. 

“Well, try as you might, I don’t think I’ll be joining you in Art History and Women and Gender Studies,” Doris admitted.

“Sad.”

“It might be Geography or International Studies.” Doris capped her lipstick and reached for a pair of pearl earrings from the little clay dish Danny made for her in art class last year. 

(She didn't dare mention to Jody she considered going into Education because she wanted to become a Home Ec teacher. Jody was already putting up with the quote on quote “unnatural fetish with the oppressive culture of the 1950s”as it was.) 

Jody hummed again and rubbed her eyes. 

“I'm still figuring it out,” Doris admitted as she put the backing on one earring and started putting in the other. “I don't know what I could do with that degree.”

“You're talking to the girl who is double majoring in what her physician parents are calling ‘worthless’ degrees,” Jody told her as she sank back into bed. 

“True.” Doris pushed back her chair and stood up, fixing her large skirt and the crinoline underneath. She tugged her sweater and rolled back the sleeves, deeming herself ready.

She grabbed her purse from its place by her desk and pulled it onto her shoulder. She grabbed the University of Colorado lanyard with her ID card and keys and stuffed it inside the outside pocket. “So, I’ll see you later?”

“Yeah, if my corpse doesn't rot inside Norlin,” Jody sighed, laughing to herself. “I’m almost done with that paper. But if I get it finished, you want to go up to the Hill with me for dinner at The Sink?”

Often, Jody and Doris lamented and celebrated over Arnold Palmers and Hawaiian Pig pizza at the city’s famous dive restaurant. 

“You don’t know how much I’m dying for a Hawaiian, since it’s not Kosher and I can’t eat it at home.” She sighed, the thought of her brother reminding her that she should really call him sometime this weekend, ask him how fourth grade and baseball and Hebrew school went this week.

She sighed again and tugged at her purse strap, opening up the door to the hallway. “I’ll see you later then?”

“Yup,” Jody mumbled into her pillow as she turned over in bed, most likely to get another hour or two of sleep in before she really needed to go back to the library. “See ya.”

Doris closed the door and went down the two flights of stairs and into the bright April afternoon. Although third floor Baker was so quiet, the sprawling lawn outside the dormitory was alive with couples picnicking and students chatting in circles and a intramural frisbee game. Doris smiled to herself as the wind picked up. The five minute walk through the park to the Center for Career was pleasant, much better than the awful, frigid walks she had to take in January through March to get to class.

She reached the Administration building a little earlier than her appointment time. There were two leather couches in the reception area of the office in the corner, far away from the desk that had a student (at least, Doris presumed he was a student because he looked way too young in comparison to the middle-aged women buzzing around the office) typing away at a Macintosh. When she opened the door, he acknowledged her with a half-smile and a nod, but continued to flip through a folder and enter data into the computer.

Doris decided to sit down at the sofa and wait for the counselor to come by and ask why she was here - as in not asking for a place to talk about her future and more like why she was studying at the University of Colorado - Boulder and not Universty of Colorado - Denver or University of Arizona - Tucson. 

(Years of sitting on a couch, trying to sort out being the daughter of two-time divorcee, being dragged through the mud of weddings and divorce court more than a girl should in her life, taught her enough why she wasn't home with her mother or in the desert with Richard and Danny.)

Doris closed her eyes and sighed. 

This wasn't about them, this was about her. What she wanted for her life. Daddy (whenever he called her on her for her yearly combined Christmas/birthday call) was pushing her towards law school because that's what he did and it wasn't like he really knew what his daughter was interested in and believed that any offspring of his was smart enough to get into some first-rate law school like he did. Mom was a gold-digger, with two years of community college under her belt. Richard worked at an advertising firm and suggested that Doris going into Communications and/or Marketing.

At home, it was a never-ending spiral of what she should/could/must do. In the clear air of Boulder, alone, she could decide who she really was. 

“Doris Keyes-Stein?” A woman read her name off a paper.

“Here.” Doris rose to her feet and swung her purse back onto her shoulder.

“Excellent. Come on back into my office.”

The counselor’s name was Linda Spangler, as Doris found out from the very professional handshake she received when she crossed the room. She had a slight Southern drawl, making Doris wonder what she was doing so far west. 

They went back through a corridor and into the office that, despite the standard clinicalness of any office in this school, really tried to make it a place where the average eighteen-to-twenty-one year olds could feel free to find themselves and pour over crafting the perfect resume. Doris noted the cacti along the windows and the crazy amount of Ralphie the Buffalo memorabilia that adorned the walls and desk space.

Ms. Spangler sat down with Doris’ academic folder and began, “I must say Doris, your grades are good enough to take you anywhere you wanted to go. It’s just a question of where you want to go. So, Doris, what are you interested in?”

Doris thought back to her middle/high school days where she spent her afternoons leaning over National Geographic and scores of library books about far-away lands, trying to imagine herself anywhere instead of trapped in confines of suburban Denver. 

“I guess I like learning about different places,” Doris admitted. “I used to cut out pictures from magazines of all the places that I wanted to visit and put them on a bulletin board.”

“So like Geography?” Ms. Spangler looked up, smiling. 

“Yes. I was actually talking about it with my roommate, Jody Hoffmann. I’m interested in that or maybe International Studies.”

“Well -” Ms. Spangler closed Doris’ folder “- those are very different majors that deal with different things. So are you interested in the places or the people?” 

Doris gave her honest answer.“Both?”

Ms. Spangler took off her glasses and thought for a minute. Then she started back again with her drawl, “I’m assuming that you want to graduate with your class? Because if you decide to double major, you might needed a semester or two to finish all the classes you need. But if you are okay with having an extra semester, you can do just that.”

Doris opened her mouth to speak but Ms. Spangler spoke first. “If that’s not something you want to pursue, then you can perhaps go for Secondary Education with an emphasis in Social Studies. That would cover both aspects of Geography and International Studies.”

A smile played on her lips. “I was actually thinking about teaching.”

And Ms. Spangler lit up at this, standing straight up. “Well, this is perfect. We have a student who does work-study here who just might help you out. Follow me.”

Once more, Doris went through the corridor and back out into the little reception area. Ms. Spangler led her right to the man at the desk, still typing away. When he noticed the presence of two other people, he looked up from the computer. 

“Doris, this is Norman Teavee. He’s an Education major with a concentration in Social Studies,” Ms. Spangler told Doris. “Norman, this is Doris Keyes-Stein. She’s thinking about joining the Education program.”

Norman Teavee was tall and lanky in the area of six foot one, taking Doris a little surprise when he unfolded himself from behind the desk and stood up to extend his hand. “Nice to meet you, Doris.”

She smiled and accepted his handshake. “It’s nice meeting you, too, Norman.”

***  
“I was born and raised in Phoenix, actually,” Norman answered Doris’ question, wiping his glasses on the hem of his button-down and then putting them back on.

Doris mmmed and sipped her lemonade. This was the first time she and Norman decided to meet up in a place that wasn’t on campus. By Doris’ suggestion, they had gone to The Sink for dinner and they had just sat down and ordered their drinks. 

By Ms. Spangler’s suggestion, Norman and Doris met and talked about Education majors and all the craziness that entailed - student teaching and certification and all that. Norman was passionate about teaching and history and had plenty to say about his three years at CU. Next semester he would enter his senior year and therefore start his student teaching at a local high school, filling in for a US History II teacher. There was something about the way he talked that made Doris excited for her own future; for the first time in a long time she felt as though she was on the right path. 

Over the past month, their conversations had naturally moved past what they were studying. They talked about movies and tv shows and what crazy thing their roommate did last week and what was happening in the news. Everything, except for their deeply personal lives. Doris avoided asking questions about Norman’s life outside of the University of Colorado, hoping that he would do the same and not ask her anything. He had just happened to mention Arizona in passing, and so she took the leap and asked. 

“I wondered why you were wearing a sweater when it’s almost seventy outside,” Doris noted the cardigan layer over his shirt. Of course, conversely, she was always complaining about the heat during summer break. 

It slipped and she said, “I live in Tucson. But I was born in Denver. I moved to Arizona when I was sixteen.”

Norman smiled and asked, “How do you like Arizona?”

She shrugged. “It’s okay. It’s not home, but vanishing inside the air-conditioning for three months isn’t terrible.”

Norman laughed. “Then what’s home for you?”

Not Denver. Not Tuscon. “I guess where I have peace. Home is supposed to be where you are in your element. Where you feel the most comfortable. And that’s not Tuscon for me. And, ah, not really Denver anymore.”

Norman took a sip of his Coke. 

As Doris tried to hide herself behind the menu because this was the first time that this thing of theirs felt more than just two Education majors getting together and talking about what classes to take and how to get through it all. This . . . 

This kinda felt like a date.

(Not like Doris had really been on a date. Her weekdays were spent trying to make herself as inconspicuous as possible in the sea of Tucson United. Her Friday nights in high school were mostly spent home alone, reading a book or crocheting or sewing well into the night.)

So she really didn’t want to screw this up.

That’s why she implored when she looked up and saw his curious glance from over his own menu. “What’s that look for?”

He laughed. “You’re just an enigma, Doris. You dress so different and have heard of all these movies and singers that nobody else knows. But it seems like every time we talk, I can’t really place you.” Norman shrugged. “I don’t know because through all that I just feel like you’re really private.”

“I have good reason.” Doris leaned on the on table, shrugging. She took another sip of her drink.

“Do you have a dark and shady past? Like some superhero?”

“I mean it’s not dark persay, but it’s pretty bleak.” Doris sighed. “And, I guess, I don’t like making everyone else’s life bleak with my own problems.”

“Well. Okay.”

And that was that. 

They didn’t talk about Doris’ life anymore than that brief conversation. Instead, over the appetizer of a loaf of cheesy break and the dinner of burgers, they talked about next semester and their plans for summer break - Doris was going back to Camp Pine Haven to be a counselor again, Norman was working at his grandparent’s antique shop . On the walk back towards campus, he told her all about his life in Phoenix. About being an only child to two school teachers in the Phoenix school district. About how he used to go boating on Lake Powell every summer with his parents. About how his cousin was his best friend and they used to like to drive around the desert. 

Meanwhile, Doris walked and listened. Wrapped her hand around Norman’s when he reached for it as they walked the streets of Boulder.

She didn’t tell him anything . About her work-obsessed father and her mother who lost herself after having a baby and when her marriage fell to shambles. About how quickly Mom found Richard and married him, falling into the same path she did the last time of marriage, baby, AA, divorce. About how Richard won custody over Danny and Doris because by that time her mother had relapsed big-time and the courts deemed her an unfit mother. About how Doris lost her good friend, Mickey, after her Junior year of high school to lung cancer. About how he was the only person she really talked to about her problems and how in the last few months of his life, he told her his entire life stories in letters sent from his hospice room. About how he had taught her the importance of carrying on through life, trying to put on a good image for everyone. 

What kind of impression would that make on Norman, especially on a first date? 

When they reached Baker Hall, he stopped at the steps. For a brief moment, Doris thought he was just going to go back to Reed. They just stood there for a few brief moments in an awkwardness that could only come with the first date. 

“Well, ah -” Norman’s hand ran itself on his neck as he shrugged. “It was nice seeing you, again Doris.”

“Thank you so much for dinner, Norman.”

“I’ll see you around, I guess?”

“Yeah.”

And then? It just kinda happened? The two of them fell into a brushing of lips with Doris standing at the top of the stairs to compensate for Norman’s height. Her eyes fluttered closed and she wanted to hold onto him forever because before she knew it, he was pulling away. She laughed and smiled at him. 

“Goodnight . . .?”

“Yeah.”

Doris walked back into Baker and went up the two flights of stairs and down the hall with the feeling she was walking on air, floating above the dirty green carpet. Jody was sitting in bed, her hair wrapped up in a towel turban, reading The Hunchback of Notre Dame for her Women in French Literature class. But even in her intense concentration, she noticed her roommate walk in with a giddy smile and dreamy eyes.

“I take it the date went well?”

Doris mmmed and sat on the bed, kicking off her heels. She fell into the floral comforter.

Jody laughed. “I guess it went really well.” And then went back to flagging important paragraphs in her book with colorful Post-It notes.

Doris reached for her portable CD player sitting on the nightstand. Her headphones went on and with a press of the ‘PLAY’ button, she was surrounded with the music of Doris Day. She skipped to track five on the disc - to “My Dreams Are Getting Better All the Time.”

And that night, she kept replaying that song, and every time the lush, romantic saxophone music intro played, she sighed and thought about that kiss. 

***

The curtains were drawn, the lights were turned out, and both of them had a bowl of popcorn nestled in their laps. Tucked in their pajamas, Doris and Danny sat on the couch on their last night before Doris flew out to North Carolina to Camp Pine Haven for mandatory training. On tv, The Shining was playing, 

Recently, Danny really got into horror films. Doris didn’t mind watching the older ones - the ones with the less gore - with him. She would only sit through the old , B-grade classics like Creature from the Black Lagoon because the first time she watched Child’s Play with her brother, she had to shove all of her porcelain dolls into a box in her closet for at least a month. 

The Shining didn’t really bother Doris too much. There was minimal blood and nothing really convinced her that the events that befell Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall were something that could happen in her own life. Besides, apparently she could do a good impression of a frantic Wendy trying to convince her psychological distant and abusive husband that a man tried to strangle their young son. 

She looked away from the Danny on the television to the Danny sitting next to her. It was so nice, being back together. The phone calls and the occasional visits to Tucson left gaps in their relationships. During the few weeks they had between college and camp, Doris was always astounded how much her brother grew and much older he acted. And then a pang would reach her heart when she realized that she was missing some of the best times of watching Danny grow up. 

It was almost enough to reconsider her decision to go to Boulder.

Almost.

Light flooded across the living room as Richard’s car pulled into the driveway, followed by the rumbling of the garage. Wendy approached Jack in the glamorous Colorado Lounge about his writing, trying to make small talk to little avail. A minute later, Richard opened the door, suit jacket over his arm, briefcase in one hand, their Chinese food order in another. 

“Who’s hungry?” He called, lifting up the smiley Have a Nice Day bag.

“Hey, dad!” Danny waved from his spot on the couch.

“Hey, Sport.” Richard sighed, putting the bag on the counter that stood between the kitchen and the family room, along with his coat and brief. He addressed Doris with the little nickname he came up when he was still Mom’s boyfriend. “Hey, Dodo.”

Doris cringed a little as she sat straighter on the couch, stretching her legs after having them curled up underneath herself. She got up to help Richard put together dinner. Danny, however, sat glued to the TV.

“Whenever I’m in here and you hear me typing or whether you don’t hear me typing or whatever the fuck you hear me doing in here, when I am in here that means I am working. That means don’t come in. Now do you think you can handle that?”

“I don’t know if I approve of the swearing in this movie, Dan,” Richard said over the rustling of plastic bags and the shuddering of ice as Doris filled three glasses. “What are you kids watching?”

“The Shining,” Doris told him, setting the glasses on the counter to fill each one with water individually. 

“And that didn’t get passed through the censor?”

“It’s on HBO.”

“Ah. Well you would never hear the f-word in a Boris Karloff film. I’m just saying,” Richard reached for three plates and stacked the containers and chopsticks on top of each other, headed for the little table between the living room and official kitchen. “Alright, Dan, supper time.”

Danny looked up and then proceeded to whine about wanting to watch the rest of this movie. Which of course lead to Richard giving his son a stern look, but eventually gave up, clearly exhausted from a long day at work. They were gonna have dinner in front of the television tonight. 

“Consider it his cultural education for today,” Doris said, as they both carried the food out to the coffee table. “He need to learn about one of the great directors of our time.”

"As long as you don't repeat the stuff you hear." Richard eyed Danny as he sat down on the love seat adjacent to the couch. By then, Danny had grabbed his vegetable egg roll from the pile and took a bite. 

"I won't," he mumbled around his eggroll. 

Unpacking the sesame chicken and rice, Doris poured a good portion onto her plate. She snapped the chopsticks and dug into her 8:30 feast. 

For the past four years, dinners were always like this. Unboxed and unwrapped after Richard got home, they felt even less homey than the fare Mom used to serve up. Mom was no master chef, but at least she had time to put on a steak and defrost a bag of vegetable medley. But Richard was often too tired to do much more than dial Jade Palace or order ahead at a chain restaurant that served curbside pickup. The most cooking Doris ever experienced Richard do came at Hannukah when fried up latkes and those rare Sundays when he felt like making pancakes.

"So you all packed for tomorrow?" Richard asked Doris. 

"I finished this afternoon," she affirmed. Packing for summer camp was something she did effortlessly as it had happened every year since 1984 and she could do it in a matter of hours and (usually) not forget something. Of course, there had been moments of panic while flying over Nebraska when she realized that she forgot her tennis racquet, but those were now few and far between and when that happened, Richard’s first care-package usually had the item with a note reading, “Missing this?” 

“Good. I was thinking we grab lunch somewhere near the airport because it’s much later than the last few years.” Richard opened up a packet of soy sauce. “And then we could stop at the drugstore or Target or somewhere if you need to pick up any last minute items.”

“Yeah that sounds like a good -” Doris was cut off by the phone ringing.

Richard was quick to his feet. “I’ll get it,” he mumbled as he sprinted to the kitchen before it went to answering machine.

Doris picked at her chicken as onscreen Danny rode his little tricycle around the hotel. Round and round the hallways until he ran into the creepy twins.

“Come play with us, Danny!”

“Doris!”

Doris’ attention shifted from the suspenseful scene. “Yeah?”

“It’s Norman.”

And at once she jumped to her feet, although she knew this was one of the best scenes in the entire film.

As Danny grew more and more frightened of the little girls - and the image of them covered in blood - real-life Danny grumbled, “He always calls during the best parts.”

“I have to answer him, Dan. It’s the last time we can talk before I go away,” Doris reminded him. 

Danny groaned, as he always did. But Doris was already telling Richard to hold the phone until she yelled that he could hang up. She dashed upstairs to her bedroom, grabbed her pink phone and sat on the edge of her bed. 

“You can hang up,” she told Richard and he did. 

The voice on the other line sounded calm and collected. “Hey, Doris.”

“Hi, Norman,” she breathed, partly from her dash up the stairs, partly because she was so glad to hear him one last time. 

(Of course, before Richard had finished packing her into the car on the last day of the spring semester, and Norman helped her carry down her plastic bins from the third floor, she had given him her summer camp address so he could write to her over break.)

“When your dad answered, I thought you were already gone,” he said with an awkward laugh. “Or at least, were out at dinner for a last family meal or something.”

Doris laughed too. “Yeah, that actually comes tomorrow before I go to the airport.”

“Well, I’m glad I could talk to you before you leave. I didn’t interpret anything important, did I?”

“Ah, no - no I was just watching TV,” Doris answered with a little hesitation. Because she knew this phone call was going to be a long one. They always were. She didn’t expect it to go on as long as it did - mostly she just intended to talk twenty minutes, half an hour at the most. But many a night when Norman called, she’d suddenly look up at the clock and it was almost one am. Or Danny would be pounding on the wall next to her, telling her that he was trying to go to bed. 

It was so easy to fall back into her pattern. They weren’t even talking about anything really important. They started to talk about summer camp and she was ranting and rambling about everything from falling into the lake to homesick campers to the first time she ever road a horse. He told her they should go horseback riding in the desert one day. He made a lot of promises and ideas that they should do after college.

Caught up in this dream of going across the country and around the world, she lost track of time and by the time they hung up, it was around 11:00. She spent forever telling him goodbye but when she finally did, she decided to return downstairs to her cold food and exhausted family.

Sure enough, her sesame chicken hadn’t been touched and Richard was passed out on the loveseat. Danny was perched at the very edge of the couch, watching the eventful chase of Jack and his son through the snowy maze. He didn’t even really notice Doris come back in a plop down on next to him and picked up her plate where she left off, not even bothering to pop it in the microwave.

Finally, when the end credits rolled, Danny looked over to her with glazed eyes and just said, “I don’t understand. Why was he in the old photo? Why -”

“I don’t know,” Doris told him truthfully. 

Danny thought for a minute and proclaimed, “That was dumb.”

Doris laughed lightly and then asked him to help her put away the leftovers. They turned off the television and Doris pulled a blanket over Richard, knowing that he would wake up sometime soon and stumble back upstairs to bed. And then, the two of them walked to their own beds.

But before Doris went inside, Danny stopped her and wrapped his arms around her. 

“I wish you didn’t have to go.”

***  
Marble Falls, Arizona 1999

Streetlights danced on the car as they turn off of I-17, rumbling past the sign of Marble Falls. On the radio, Bing Crosby dreams of a white Christmas, but outside, it’s 67 degrees. In fact, the only way to tell that it’s Christmas Eve was the inflatable Santas swaying in the wind and the rainbow lights leaving a trail down the road as they entered suburban Phoenix. 

It was only a short drive between Tuscon to the small community of Marble Falls, but it seemed like it was taking an eternity. As Doris kept her eyes on the scores of houses passing her as they crawled through the streets, she played with the ring around her finger - Norman’s class ring. It was a little large and therefore easy to mess around with and help distract her.

The ring on her finger was the reason they were going to Marble Falls. This trip was, in a way, announcing their pre-engagement. Norman, spending the past year student teaching in and around Boulder, was finally offered a job at Nevin Platt Middle School to take a 8th grade US History position. With a real salary, and Doris graduating in May, they started thinking about getting married. Norman hadn’t “officially” proposed, but they both knew it was on the horizon. 

They rolled past dozens upon dozen modest ranch-style homes, almost all of them garishly decorated for Christmas. They make a turn, past a corner grocery store and a Chinese restaurant and a Baskin Robbins and a pharmacy and a post office in a single line of row shops. They turned the corner and crawled down the street until finally they pulled into a driveway of one of the countless ranch homes. 

Outside, white lights were strung around the porch and wrapped all around the sides of the roof. The two large cacti that had sprung up like trees in the front lawn were even adorn with the Christmas treatment. 

Bathed in the light, Doris couldn’t help but smile as she exited the car and Norman held her hand in one of his, and then held her suitcase in the other. That way, Doris could fret about how her hair held up during the car ride and make sure the crinoline underneath her cheery green dress sat just right all for the moment when Norman put down the suitcase and opened the front door.

The overwhelming smell of Christmas hit her soon as the door opened - the smell of turkey and pine and fresh baked cookies - and they were greeted by Mrs. Teavee. Her curly red hair couldn’t detract from the similar lankiness that she and her son shared. 

“Oh, hello, hello!” She exclaimed so brightly as she pulled Doris away from her son and wrapped her in her arms. A laugh caught in Doris’ throat as she relaxed against her soon-to-be mother-in-law. “Welcome to our home, Doris!”

This initial interaction, although it lessened her nerves, didn’t completely comfort Doris and she made sure to keep her guard up as Mrs. Teavee finished hugging her son and ushered them inside the house. The interior was just as cozy as the exterior made it seem. The wood paneling of the living room and the soft-looking couches gave off a warmth that Doris was not expecting. In the corner, the Christmas tree (a real one - not the plastic one Mom haphazardly put up every year) stood, gleaming with silvery tinsel and bright red and blue bulbs. 

Yes. This was Christmas.

Another tall man emerged from the kitchen- Mr. Teavee. He resembled his son more with his dark hair and coke-bottle glasses. “Son!” He boomed.

“Hey, dad,” Norman greeted as he set down Doris’ suitcase and let go of her hand. The two Teavee men walked towards each other and gave each other a short hug - much quicker than the one Mrs. Teavee had delivered. 

“The drive okay?”

“Yeah, I just took 87,” Norman told him. “There was a bit of traffic around Coolidge, but other than that it was a pretty straight shot.”

“Good, good,” Mr. Teavee nodded and then looked up to Doris, who was standing awkwardly on the fringe of this family gathering. “And who is this fine looking gal?”

The light of the Christmas tree could not hide her blush. “I’m Doris Keyes-Stein,’ she said as she stepped forward, offering her hand for his boyfriend’s father to shake. 

“Well, well,” Mr. Teavee said with a low-whistle, reaching around his son to shake his girlfriend’s hand. After they parted, he looked to Norman. “You certainly know how to pick ‘em, Norm. She’s beautiful.” 

“Thank you, Mr. Teavee,” Doris said. 

“She’s also incredibly smart,” Norman bragged. “In the top fifteen percent of her class at Boulder and thinking about going for her Master’s in Geography.”

“It’s just a dream right now,” Doris explained. “I’d like to get a job first before I pile on anymore student debt.”

Mrs. Teavee interjected, “Would anyone like something to drink? I got lemonade, ice tea, soda, something from the bar?” She motioned to the little cart sitting by the television set (currently playing It’s A Wonderful Life) that was piled with bottles. “Doris, anything for you? I have eggnog.”

“Eggnog is perfect,” Doris assured as Norman lead her to the couch, his father sitting on the loveseat facing opposite. 

“Everyone else want eggnog?” Mrs. Teavee asked, just about ready to head into the kitchen. Her two men gave affirmative answers and she disappeared to mix the drinks. 

“So . . . Geography, huh?” Mr. Teavee began, reaching forward to grab the packet of cigarettes sitting on the glass coffee table. He held it up, but then paused, asking, “You don’t mind if I smoke, do you, Doris?”

Doris mumbled that it was fine, before answering his first question. “Yeah, I wanted to travel a lot when I was a kid, and I’ve just been interested in learning about different places.”

“Well, I can tell you -” Mr. Teavee stroke a match and lit up his cigarette. “You might not be able to go anywhere your first few years - subbing and all that. But once you get more regular work, with your summers open, you definitely are a little more free. Why, Ethel and I -”

And so the next hour and a half was spent talking about college - University of Colorado, Boulder was Ethel Teavee’s alma mater - and about being teachers. Two decades in the field had left Norman’s parents incredibly knowledgable about the subject, their accolades were filled with such life and color and humor and wisdom that Doris insisted they kept going. They had been all over the world in the few years before they had Norman, and were constantly cutting into each other’s stories with added details, or quips.

Doris leaned against Norman and as she hung onto every word Ethel and Michael Teavee said, she began to dream of what life would be like in the next few years with Norman. Their lives sounded so nice, so simple, but at the same time so fulfilling. It was the life she had dreamed off for a long time and as she squeezed her future fiance’s hand, she became convinced that this dream was finally going to come true.

She was so wrapped up in the conversation between the three Teavees, that when she finally looked at the cat clock upon the wall, she gasped. She was supposed to call Danny before he went to bed. 

Look up from her third refill of eggnog, she asked, “Hey, do you mind if I make a phone call?” 

“No problem, sweetie,” Mrs Teavee said, nodding. She turned to point to the kitchen and told her, “ It’s in the kitchen by the backdoor.”

Doris stood up, straightened her skirts, and walked into the kitchen, where she found the phone and dialed Richard’s home phone number. She got the dial tone for a few rings, but the other line was picked rather quickly.

“Hello, Stein residence,” a young voice said, practiced and rehearsed. 

“Hey, Dan. Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

“Doris!” Danny’s voice lit up when he heard hers. 

“You can tell Dad I made it to Marble Falls a-okay,” Doris said with a smile. “Just so he doesn’t yell at you for being up so late. It may be a holiday, but you know how he gets.”

“He hasn’t yelled at me yet,” Danny informed her, proud. “He said I can stay up and watch the end of South Park.”

“He’s letting you watch South Park now?”

“Well . . . no,” Danny mumbled. “I told him I was watching a movie on ABC but he went to go work on stuff in his office, so as long as I have the volume down low, he can’t tell what I’m watching. Besides, my Bar Mitzvah is in May, and I’m going to be a man then. So an almost-man can watch South Park.”

“You’re thirteen, Dan,” Doris laughed.

The conversation shifted from South Park on tv to the Teavee family, when Danny asked, “So are they nice?”

“Yes,” Doris’ voice fell to a whisper. “Very.”

“Are we going to meet them soon?” 

“I hope,” Doris said with a drawn breath. Telling the Teavees about her and Norman’s engagement was making her nervous. 

“Have you mentioned it to them yet?”

“Not quite yet. It might be tomorrow morning.”

“I’m happy for you, Doris.”

Danny at first, hadn’t quite taken to the idea of his sister being with Norman, just like when she went off to college in another state. So when he said this, she felt the prickling of tears reach her eyes. “Thanks, Dan.” She cleared her throat. “Dan, I actually have to go. But, have a nice Christmas tomorrow. What are you and Dad going to see?”

“Well, he wants to see Galaxy Quest, but that just came out today, so we’ll see,” Danny told her and then he groaned. “I don’t want to see Stuart Little because that’s his second place option.”

“It’s fun for the whole family, apparently,” Doris told him.

“I wasn’t into that book as a kid, so what’s the chance I’m gonna like some corny live-action version of it?”

“You never know, Dan.” She sighed. “I’ll see you Monday, kay?”

“‘Kay.”

And with that, Danny hung up. Doris set the phone back on it’s cradle on the wall. She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, ready to face her future head on.

***  
Tucson, Arizona, 2000 

Already the parking lot of the Hilton was jammed with the cars that Doris recognized from the synagogue, but thankfully she and Norman were able to get a decent parking spot and they didn’t have to walk too far across the lot. Which was amazing because it was ninety-five degrees and the closer they were to air-conditioned building, the better.

“So, what do I say to Dan again?” Norman asked when the car stopped, unpinning the blue yamaka from his hair and putting it on the dashboard. In little silver stitching, Danny’s Hebrew name and the date - May 27th, 2000, had been embroidered. 

“Well, you could say, Yasher koach,” Doris said with a laugh, as she pulled the car’s mirror down and checked that her lipstick was in order. “It means something like ‘good job.’ Of course, you could also say just Mazel tov.”

“Mazel tov, right,” Norman repeated. 

“Yeah, that’s fine,” Doris assured him as she put the mirror back up. She reached for his hand and squeezed it, “You’ll be fine.” She looked back to the present sitting on the floor in the back seat and grabbed it before they headed out towards the hotel.

Inside the Hilton, they were guided by a series of attendants and signs that proclaimed DANIEL STEIN’S BAR MITZVAH until they finally came to the ballroom. The two, wide-open French doors were decorated with music notes and posters of Aero Smith and Guns and Roses. 

(The great Baseball verus Rock ‘N Roll Bar Mitzvah Theme Debate of ‘99 had lasted months, but Danny finally won and got what he wanted.)

Inside, the entire ballroom was drenched in blue light that resembled concert lighting. At least fifty tables circled around the dance floor, every single one adorned with a fake guitar and silver streamers, with the guitar picks that Richard had engraved, just like the yamakas, with Danny’s name and the date.

Already, the dj was playing music - not quite as boisterous as Doris expected it to go, but loud enough that they had heard it down the hall. Throngs of thirteen-year-olds were all in small clumps, chatting excitedly amongst themselves, and Doris wasn’t expecting to find Danny quickly, but he emerged from the groups and ran towards her - dressed in his finest suit and tie that matched his kippah.

“Mazel tov!” Doris exclaimed as her brother wrapped his arms around her. She learned down and kissed the top of his yamaka-ed head, crying out, “My baby brother is a man now.”

He laughed as pulled her even closer and then separated. He looked up to Norman, who said, “Mazel tov, Danny,” and offered a hand awkwardly for a high-five. Danny took it. 

“Doris!” Danny exclaimed, practically bursting with excitement. “Did you hear that great aunt Trudy bought me a PS2?”

“Really?” Doris feigned shock, but she had known about it for a while. Which was why she had bought the versions of a few of Danny’s favorite games in the new form. She tried not to give it away in her voice or her smile, “That’s so cool.”

“Yeah!” Danny smiled, and then noticed the rectangular packages in her hand. “You can put those on the table over there, and I think you know where you’re sitting, right?”

“Right.” She had planned the seating chart to an extent. “I won’t keep you from your friends any longer, Dan.”

He laughed and then went back with his friends. Norman and Doris dropped off their gifts and cards on the appropriate table and found their seats near the front. Hor d'oeuvres were being served by waiters in black suits and top hats - part of the “Rock” look Danny had wanted - and Norman decided to track down the guy who had the spinach and artichoke dip, while Doris went off towards the bar.

She planned on getting a glass of champagne, but decided that she needed something stronger when she went up to the bar. There, holding a glass of the drink herself, was Doris’ mother.

“Doris!!” She exclaimed, a little too loudly. 

(She was already drunk.)

Doris couldn’t ignore her mother, even if she really wanted to. With a defeated sigh, she gave a small wave and said, “Hey, mom.”

Mom was incredibly tanned and now had red highlights in her dark hair. For her youngest’s coming-of-age ceremony, she had decided to wear an incredibly tight and low-cut floral blouse and white capris - most suitable for a day in Florida than a Bar Mitzvah. 

Her mother’s thin, bony hand reached for her own and pulled her in closer. “How are you?! Ah, did you just graduate college! That’s exciting!”

“It is.”

“So do you have a job lined up?” She asked.

“Not yet,” Doris admitted. “I might be substituting for a little while. New to teaching and all that.”

“Of course, of course.” Mom waves it off, as she downs half of her champagne. Suddenly, she grabs for Doris’ hand. “Listen, I have someone to introduce you to; he’s been dying to meet you.”

(Doris already knew that it was a new boyfriend. She tensed when the word ‘he’ was dropped.)

The new boyfriend in question could not have been more than five years older than Doris. He was everything that her mother usually wanted in men: long, tall, handsome, and dripping with money. Doris could not help but notice the way the Rolex on his right wrist glinted as he extends his hand to shake. His name was David and he worked in LA most of the time, but he was so glad he could take a little road trip to visit Tucson.

Biting her lip and putting on a brave face, Doris nodded and said she was glad to meet him, before she excused herself that she was going to look for Norman - leaving out that he was now her fiance. 

Norman had a collection of hors o'dourves on a thick blue plastic plate and was standing by their table, but he set it all down when he saw her coming right towards him, without a drink, and tears framing her red-hot face.

“Hey, hey, what’s the matter?” He questioned as she fell against him. 

And before Doris could explain - the flames finally hit the gasoline. Shouting could be heard from the other side of the ballroom, even all over the music coming from the enormous speakers by the DJ. Doris tore herself from Norman and looked to what was happening. 

She saw her mother and Danny’s paternal aunts swarming around her. The actual words were muted by the loud bass line, but Doris knew. She knew all too well as she watched a security guard try and split them up, but to little avail. Mother got in his face, violently whipped around and pointed to Danny, who was standing by Richard’s side with his hand on his shoulder. She whipped back to the guard and pleaded him. There was a look of disdain on the face of the guard as he turned to the aunts, who were just as frantic with their own explanation.

The guard jerked back to Mom and, grabbing her by the elbow, led her out of the ballroom.

Tears were budding in Doris’ eyes and her feet were carrying her - god knows where. She could feel Norman follow her, she could hear him call her name. 

“Doris! Doris! Doris!”

And suddenly, she was at the car. Without noticing, she was already so far outside of the hotel, heading straight for the road. She was staring out at the blurs of grey and red light - cars zipping down the road - race against the blurry heat of the desert. 

Norman’s hands were on her shoulders once more, and he turned her to face him. “Doris,” he said her name so sweetly, so concerned. “Are you okay?”

Yes.

“No,” she admitted. Not wanting to look at him, she averted her eyes so she didn’t have to stare directly at him when the words, “I have so much to tell you” came tumbling out. Even more words tumbled out unexpectedly as they sat in the car with the air conditioner on. 

She told him everything. About how her mother’s first marriage had been a total disaster, but yet she tried again. And apparently, was going to try again. About how she forgot their birthdays some times. About how she fell into drunken stupors night after night when she was getting her second divorce. About how Danny’s aunts were basically surrogate mothers to him while Doris was away at college and how they couldn’t stand his mother. About how this was supposed to be one of the biggest days of Danny’s life, and his mother didn’t know she was not wanted, and came anyway to ruin everything.

After Doris was done with her explanation, they just sat there, in silence. 

“Yikes,” Norman said.

“Yeah,” Doris said, nodding, wiping away her tears. “You can see why I don’t like talking about my family a lot.” She sighed and looked back at the hotel, knowing she would have to go back and be there for her brother. Even though she knew this, she needed to say, “I just wish I could be anywhere but here.”

“Okay.”

The keys fell into the ignition and the car revved up. Norman pulled the car out of the parking spot and they got on the main road, aimless, but free from aching familial bonds. 

***

At midnight, Doris was standing at the doorway of A Little White Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas, Nevada. She had traded in her blue floral dress for Danny’s Bar Mitzvah for mid-calf rental wedding gown and a birdcage veil. In her hands, she was holding a bouquet of peach roses and baby’s breath - an almost hundred dollar purchase.

But, she noted as the straightened her hair, trying to perfect herself before she walked down the aisle, it would have been a lot more expensive if we did this the old fashioned way. And a lot more crazy.

Yes. This was a good idea.

The traditional wedding march reverberated the roadside church and as Doris took a deep breath, she started with her right foot down the aisle of red carpet. She looked up and saw Norman, who with a nice-fitting tux, was a perfect groom.

This was a very good idea.


End file.
